Follow Me
by MadameMe
Summary: After the Final Battle, we follow the life of Hermione Granger, as she learns to follow her heart to better things and the life worth living. Oneshot, AU after OotP


Follow me to the place.

That place where nothing is the same as it was. The place where it all ended. The place where it all began. The place, the battlefield, where the famous Harry Potter took and lost a life.

* * *

On a misty moor in the north of England, the Final Battle was fought. Witches, wizards, Death Eaters and Order members alike battled and died on this sacred land. The battle raged for hours, claiming many innocent (and not so innocent) lives.

Harry cast the final spell, the one that would end it all. The Order had counted on this. What they had not planned was for the curse to drain all of Harry's magical energy, leaving Harry to rely on his magical core. Once that power was drained as well, Harry fell to the ground, dead.

Hermione Granger, blood and tear-stained, wept over the body of her fallen friend. She wept for the life she had not been able to live. She wept for the lives of so many of her generation, lost to one side or the other. As the Aurors came to claim the body of their impromptu leader, she begged for mercy, for release, for death.

Hermione awoke two days after the battle in a too-cheery hospital room. The nurses came in, whispering softly, for though they did not know the complete story, they knew this young woman had experienced great sorrow. Hermione shunned the press (of whom there were many) and the well-wishers (of whom there were few).

Two days later, she was released, to a press conference and constant media exposure. She returned to her flat, to the emptiness that was there without her other two-thirds. After verifying the press' absence, she left. Apparated to a point in a back alleyway that was convenient to the town bar.

A young Muggle moved to sit at the bar next to her. _Muggles_. That was all they were to her now. She had no more connection to this world, the one that raised her to be an optimist. She had only room in her heart for the pessimistic sentiments of the magical world.

The man offered to buy her drinks. Then he offered to take her home with him. To Hermione, whose morals had once made her a shining star among her peers, it seemed he was not sincere in his claim of affection. She cared not, though. She walked through the door and followed him, never looking back.

At the man's flat (she had yet to learn his name), she lay on the bed, let him fondle her, kiss her, without feeling a thing. Even as he took her virginity, she felt nothing.

After her short time with him ended, she walked out of the flat, and Apparated home, feeling confused. She cried into her pillow for what never came. For what never would come.

She went through the next years of her life a shell of the woman she could have been. There was nothing that could bring her out of her self-imposed mourning. Though Harry would not have wished it, the rational part of her mind told her, she kept up her vigil at his grave.

* * *

Five years later, she returned to the bar, to find a completely different crowd. Taking a back table, she watched the younger generation find comfort in the physical acts completed and alcohol consumed there. A dark man sat watching her from the shadows of the corner.

"I know who you are. The last time you were in here, you left with a man, without thinking twice about it. And, if things go your way, you will do the same tonight. This is not the way to honour the memories of your friends. This is not the way you were raised. This is not what your friends wanted for you. What they wanted is for you to be happy. To find life and love all over again.

"Don't you see that we all have lost someone? I lost my fiancée to the last war; you lost the only boy you ever loved to this one. To believe that you are alone is not right. For you are not alone. Though you would never have looked for help from me, I am offering it.

"Come home with me tonight. We will sit and talk of things that were and things that are. Maybe together we can live to face the future. For that is what they would have wanted you to do."

* * *

Follow me to the place from where love now flows.

A house, full of happiness and warmth. A place where the old has passed away to a beautiful new. A place where children's voices ring out in song and laughter.

A dark-haired child ran up to his mother. "Mummy, I love you."

Scooping her son up in her arms and smiling at her husband, she whispered, "I love you too, Severus Jr."


End file.
